It's a Luna thing
by TheOwlWBU
Summary: Twilight Sparkle is invited to spend some time in Canterlot, and finds herself tasked with teaching Luna the magic of friendship.
1. The Library

**This is my entry for** **Happy Luna's Super Magically Fun Storytime Adventure Challenge. Read more about it on Equestria Daily!**

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><p>"Twilight!" Spike moaned, teetering with a large pile of books in his arms, "You really don't need to take all this junk." Ever since he had burped up a letter from Princess Celestia inviting Twilight to visit the other day, she had been doing nothing but piling up every single book in the library to scour for anything that could be related to anything.<p>

"Don't be ridiculous, Spike." Twilight said. "The Princess wouldn't ask me to leave Ponyville for nothing. I'm obviously going to be asked to do something important, so I'll need to take every precaution. Now hold these." She levitated another book over and placed it on top of the wobbling stack that the now wavering dragon was trying to keep intact. Unfortunately, the latest addition proved to be the straw that broke the dragon's back, and the entire stack fell backwards onto him.

He sat up, blinked until the stars went away, rubbed his head and then looked at the book which had caused him to collapse. "Abacarazy," he deadpanned. "How to use the mathematical potential of an abacus to confound your foes and aid your friends." He looked up and gave Twilight a blank stare. "Why would you even need this one? I don't think anypony has ever checked it out."

"Well, I just might, Spike. Don't give me that look." She levitated the scattered heap and reassembled it in the blink of an eye. "And I'd appreciate it if you stopped fooling around and helped for once!" She gave the pile back to the dragon, who promptly dropped them all on his head once again.

"I'm just saying, Twilight, that Canterlot has its own library. Do you really need to check out this many from the Ponyville library? It's not like these books are rare; I'm pretty sure that they'll all have copies of these books," said Spike after he dug himself out again.

Twilight paused. "That's a good point… I didn't think of that." She sighed. This was going to be embarrassing. She hated admitting she was wrong. "Yes, Spike, you're right and I'm wrong." She clenched her teeth in anticipation of the gloating that was sure to ensue.

"Well, it had to happen at some point," The dragon said. "Can we clear all this up now?"

Twilight smiled. She was glad that her best friend wasn't going to make fun of her for making a mistake. Truth be told, she was never quite sure why she was always convinced it was going to happen. She made a mental note to ask the palace therapist for his opinion when she arrived in Canterlot.

A rapping on the door caused her to break out from her thoughts. She trotted over to the door and found herself face-to-face with a white pegasus in Canterlot armour. "I'm here to pick up Twilight Sparkle."

"Hello, that's me. I just need a few more moments to say my goodbyes and pick up my stuff."

"There's no rush, take your time."

Trotting back into the main area, she levitated her saddlepack (sans books) and placed them onto her back. "Sorry, Spike, but you're going to clean this mess up yourself."

Spike looked around. The library looked like a war zone. "Are you sure you can't help just a little, Twilight?" he said, trying and failing to hide the desperation in his voice.

"Sorry, Spike, but I have to go now." A small smile crept up on her face. "Besides, Rarity is going to arrive soon to look after the place… you don't want her to think that my number one assistant can't look after himself properly, do you?"

Chuckling at the abject horror in the young dragons face as he imagined his beau's disgust, she turned around and left with a "goodbye." The white pegasus was still waiting outside, and was standing so still he might have been an exhibit looted from Madame Hoofaud's for all anypony could tell.

"Are you ready?" said the pegasus.

"Yes, I'm fine. How long will it take to get to Canterlot?" Twilight said as they began walking the short distance to the chariot in the high street.

"It should be less than an hour, Celestia had the wind direction changed to give us a boost. If you're ready."

Twilight climbed into the chariot and it set off almost straight away. Looking back at the quickly-shrinking Ponyville library, she sighed. Hopefully Canterlot wouldn't keep her from her friends for long.

Happy Luna's Super Magically Fun Storytime Adventure Challenge


	2. The Chariot

Wet. Twilight Sparkle was very wet. About halfway to the palace of Canterlot, a massive storm had brewed up, drenching her and all of her stuff.

"I suppose it's a good thing I didn't pack any books after all," she muttered to herself. "They would have been ruined in this."

She flicked her sodden fringe from her eyes and looked through the haze. They were only a few minutes away from her old home of Canterlot. A lot of ponies were under the impression that Canterlot is built onto the side of a mountain and hangs off it, but it actually extended a lot further into the mountain. Twilight had never gone much further than the palace grounds herself, since she barely left the royal library, but she knew that it was the bureaucratic heart of Equestria. Every civil servant worked here.

The chariot banked as it headed towards the residential area of the palace. Twilight expected to be greeted with pomp by some servant or dignitary, and was surprised to find nopony but Princess Celestia waiting for her, a magical barrier acting as an umbrella.

"Princess!" Twilight cried as she hopped from the chariot and ran towards her.

"My faithful student, Twilight Sparkle." said Celestia, as they nuzzled. "Welcome back to Canterlot! Things are much less interesting without you here." She smiled as she looked at the bedraggled and soaked Twilight Sparkle. "Oh my, did you get a little… wet?" Her light smile grew into a grin of epic proportions as she thought of the rainstorm she had secretly scheduled earlier that day.

"Yes, I'm afraid I am, Princess." said Twilight, fighting the urge to shake herself like a dog. "If only Rainbow Dash were with me; she could have dispersed those storm clouds in ten seconds flat."

"Yes, I'm sure she could. I've heard so much about them from your friendship reports and would very much like to hear more before you have to leave again."

Twilight frowned. She was so happy to see her mentor again she had almost forgotten why she was even seeing her in the first place.

"Princess, why am I here in the first place? It sounded like you really needed my help with something in your letter."

Celestia tittered, her laughs warming the heart of Twilight, almost as if they were sun rays themselves. "Perceptive as always, my little pony. Come inside and unpack; I'll tell you all about it over dinner. I have a feeling you'll know yourself before it is through."

Twilight smiled, concealing the small amount of anxiety she had. A small voice in her head asked what was so important that she couldn't just be told straight away, and Twilight studiously ignored it until it went away.

They entered the palace together.

"I'm sorry we can't put you in the library that you used to stay in, but it's been unavailable. We do have other rooms in this place, though, so you don't need to worry." Celestia said.

"It's no problem, Princess. I didn't think you were going to put me in the dungeon!"

After a bit more walking, they came to a nondescript door tucked away in a secluded area of the castle.

"Dinner is at 8 O'clock in the usual place," said Celestia. "I'm happy you're back." She walked away, leaving Twilight alone.

Opening the door, she stepped in and inspected her new temporary home. It was simple, but not much worse than her Ponyville home. Levitating her saddlebag off her back, she emptied out the contents on the floor. Most of her things had survived the torrent quite well, and with a bit of magic they were bone dry and placed about the room. Other things didn't manage quite so well. Twilight looked sadly at the ruined copy of Abacarazy, wondering why it was even in her bag in the first place.

A few hours later, she emerged from her room looking like she'd never touched rain before and headed towards the dining room, looking forward to her first Canterlot meal.


	3. The Dinner

"And, do you know, the colt in the garage said to me 'But sir, we don't have the parts!'. I wasn't having any of that, of course - if you give them an inch then they'll take a foot. So I say to the colt 'Listen, I have a very important occasion with royalty and I simply shan't be going in anything but this carriage…"

Twilight poked the food around her plate a little. She had imagined her meal would be a more private occasion, but it had turned out to be anything but. She had been trained better than to be rude towards the 'high society', but that didn't mean that she found Prince Blueblood IV to be anything but the vacuous idiot that he was.

She briefly considered asking him if he even remembered how he ruined the Gala for her friend Rarity, but considering that he called her 'Twinight Sprinkle' when they talked in the hall despite the fact that they had met many times before, she really doubted he would.

"I say, Princess Luna, how do you deal with incompetents in your work force?"

The Princess looked up. She looked almost as bored as Twilight was. Of course, that could simply be the residual magic flowing from her. Whilst Celestia gave off a warm glow that made you feel like you were basking in a sunny dale, Luna gave off a more subdued, elegant feeling. 'It's strange that the younger one makes you want to act older and more mature, and the older one makes you want to roll about like a child,' Twilight thought to herself.

"I'm not so sure, Humphrey. I've never experienced the staff here to be anything but helpful and flexible. Perhaps it's because they are happy to have me as a boss."

Twilight fought the urge to giggle as 'Humphrey' flustered. Imagine, a pony with a name like 'Humphrey'! Rarity would certainly find that very amusing.

Next to Twilight, Celestia smiled serenely.

"Come along now, sister. Let's not cause the guests to hate us before desert is even served. Are you quite alright… Humphrey?"

Prince Blueblood looked at his plate, cowed.

"Quite, Princess. Quite."

The rest of the meal went without much talking from either of the two verbal combatants. Twilight took the time to study Luna. It struck her as strange that she never considered writing to her before then, even though she was instrumental in cleansing her from Nightmare Moon's influence. Perhaps she should make more effort in future.

She really was quite strange, even for a pony with both a horn and wings. Celestia was her opposite in more ways than one - Celestia towered over everypony, but Luna was barely taller than Twilight herself. Perhaps she would grow taller as she got older.

After the dessert plates were whisked away by the waiters who had been hovering in the alcoves, ponies began saying their goodbyes. Princess Luna stood and left without a word. Twilight looked at Celestia, who indicated that she should follow.

Luna and Twilight walked together in silence for a bit. When they reached the wooden door to Luna's chambers, she spoke up.

"Did you enjoy the meal?"

"Oh, it was lovely. I…"

"That's good to know. Goodnight, Twilight Sparkle."

"Goodnight Princess."

Luna walked through the door, and closed it behind her. Twilight stared at the door and frowned for a bit.

"Do you know why you're here now?"

Twilight jumped. She hadn't heard Celestia walk up to her.

"I think I might, Princess. Is it about Luna?"

"Yes it is. I had hoped that she would make many friends around the castle, but she instead spends most of her time in the library. She reminds me of you when you were here, you know."

"So… you want me to be her friend?"

Celestia nuzzled up to Twilight, a motherly embrace that few others could expect to get from the ruler of Equestria.

"That's right. She might be happy tucked away with books, but I think she could be happier if she had a real friend of her own."

Twilight smiled as wide as she could.

"You can count on me, Princess!"


	4. Later that night

"You want me to do WHAT?"

Celestia winced. She knew that informing Luna that she was going to spend the entire day learning to make friends wasn't going to be easy, but she had hoped that the normally serene Luna would avoid making a scene.

"Sister, you spend all day inside the hall of records reading about tax enactments, laws and treaties from 500 years ago. I just don't think it's healthy."

"So, what, I'm supposed to just pretend that the last 1,000 years didn't occur? How am I supposed to co-rule with you if I remain ignorant of happenings?"

That hope was dwindling by the second.

"Please, give it a chance. You know you can trust Twilight Sparkle - and she was doing the same thing as you before I sent her away to Ponyville. You might find you're happier with friends, especially ones with things in common with you."

Luna sighed. She knew when she had been defeated. Facing back towards the edge of the balcony in which they were talking, she lowered the moon.

"Fine. I promise I'll try and be nice to your student, but I won't enjoy it. I don't have time for that sort of thing."

Celestia smiled as her horn lit up and the sun raised slowly over the horizon.

"We'll see. I left some things in your room, by the way. Consider them presents."

Luna's eyes lit up with interest…

"Presents?"

…and then collapsed into suspicion.

"Presents. I know all about your presents, so you'd better tell me now if it's one of your stupid jokes again!"

"Sister, sister, you're too wary for your own good. I promise that what you will find are actual presents."

"Oh." Her eyes betrayed her excitement. "Thank you, sister! I love presents!"

"Yes, I know you do. Hurry along now, your duty is over for the day. Go and prepare for Twilight!"

"Yes, I shall. I'll see you at dinner!"

Trotting down the hall to her own bedroom, Luna wondered what her present could be. A new saddle? A fan? Maybe she commissioned a poem. She was so engrossed in thought she nearly collided with the cleaning pony who was stationed in the area that her quarters were in.

"Oh, sorry, Scruffy Brush. I didn't see you there."

"My fault entirely, your Majesty. I wasn't looking where I was going."

The light brown earth pony had been dragging a bulging sack, which explained why he hadn't simply stepped out of her way.

"What's in the sack, Scruffy?"

Scruffy looked balefully behind him.

"Some fool left socks all over the floor everywhere in my sector! It's taken hours to pick all of them up. Over 300 pairs of socks!" He sighed. "I don't understand why somepony would do that."

Luna looked back and gave him a sympathetic look as she opened her door.

"I'll see if they can't give you a small bonus for the extra work. It sounds like you deserve it!"

But Scruffy was looking incredulous. Luna was about to object, when she noticed that rather than staring at her, he was staring over her head. She turned around and looked at the bulging mass which was about to avalanche from her room.

Twenty-thousand pairs of socks spilled out into the corridor, burying both ponies shoulder-deep.

Luna groaned. She supposed that this was Celestia's present.

Scruffy pulled himself out of the pile, looking for all the world like he was going to burst into tears.

"I think I might need more sacks. I hate socks."

Luna couldn't help but agree.


	5. Twilight's morning

**If you're wondering why I'm mentioning Spike and his library issues here, it's because I'm tying this in with another fic I'm planning, because the other one requires no Twilight and I think it would be cool if someone could read about what's happening to her when the rest of the gang are getting up to their own adventure**. **I think I might have already done one or two minor ones without explanation, but I'll try and not derail this story any more. Thanks for reading!**

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><p>The sun rose over Canterlot, and with it rose the inhabitants, ready to kickstart the administrative heart of Equestria once again. One of these inhabitants, however, had been awake for some time longer.<p>

Twilight was grimacing as she rubbed her eyes. For some reason, the person who had designed her room layout decided that the best place for a bed was the place where the sun would shine directly in her face as soon as it rose. It had completely destroyed any chances of her waiting until a reasonable hour to rise, and she had placated herself by writing to her friends for suggestions. A knock at the window snapped her out of her stupor. The grey pegasus at the other side waved cheerfully. Twilight smiled and opened the window, allowing Ditzy Doo to fly into the room.

"Hi, Ditzy! Did anypony write back?"

"Sure did! They were really accumulated to get your toast!"

Ignoring the strange turns of phrase, Twilight smiled as the Ponyville mail pony rummaged around her saddlebag. Eventually she pulled out a bright pink envelope, and placed it carefully onto Twilights desk.

"Thank you for coming out all this way, it means a lot to me."

"No trouble there! The clocks are low and the bump needs paying! Bye!" trilled Ditzy as her golden eyes lolled about, as they were wont to do. With the conversation done with and more deliveries to make, she flew back out of the window.

Twilight closed her window and turned her attention to the envelope that had been delivered to her. Judging from the colour and large size, she guessed that this was correspondence from Pinkie Pie. A quick look at the addressee pretty much confirmed that in her mind. Twilight didn't know anypony else who would address a letter to her as 'MY BEST FRIEND TWILIGHT WHO IS SUPER MAGICAL AND PURPLE AND STUFF'. A small smile crept across her face as she thought of the hyperactive Pinkie Pie slowing down to write a letter, and was seized by a sudden maddening curiosity to see what her suggestion for Luna was. Hovering the letter in front of her, she sat down at her reading table and opened the envelope, and found a card.

"Hmm, this is strange," thought Twilight, "I wonder why she made a card instead of just writing a letter." Chalking it up to Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie, she slid the card out and opened it.

FLASH

BANG

WHIZZ

All manners of party streamers, paper snakes, poppers and self-inflating balloons smashed into her face. She waved her hooves to waft away the smoke, and quickly found herself at a loss. Coughing, she made her way back to the window and re-opened it, to allow the smoke out. Looking around, she inspected her room now that the card had revealed its trump. Streamers dangled from every nook, balloons occupied every cranny, music was playing and it looked for all the world like Pinkie Pie herself had leapt from that card, thrown a bash, and leapt back into hammerspace, all in the span of a few seconds.

Feeling slightly itchy, she looked down at herself. For a moment she was rather surprised at the fact that she seemed to be glowing, but then she realised that she was, in fact, covered in what appeared to be Sugarcube Corner's entire supply of party glitter. She sighed, noting that she would have to wash herself down again before meeting the princess. "But first," she said to herself, "I'm going to look at that confounded card!"

Heading back to her desk, deftly avoiding the warbling mini-Victrola that had somehow been forced into the card along with everything else, and gingerly levitated the card, pointing it face down this time before opening it again. Luckily, the first payload was the only one, and she rotated it back towards herself and began to read.

DEAR TWILIGHT

I'M SO SUPER HAPPY THAT YOU DECIDED TO WRITE TO ME BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS KIND OF BORING AROUND HERE SINCE YOU LEFT AND I ONLY HAD A CARD TO WRITE ON BUT I MADE IT A REALLY FUN CARD SO YOU WON'T MIND AND DID A PICTURE OF US ON THE FRONT AND OH WOW DID YOU KNOW THAT SPIKE BROKE THE LIBRARY AND ANYWAY I READ YOUR LETTER AND IT SAID THAT YOU WANTED STUFF TO DO WITH THE PRINCESS AND HOW IS SHE ANYWAY I NEVER HEARD BACK FROM HER AFTER THAT SUPER DUPER AWESOME PARTY OF THE MILLENIUM WE DID FOR HER AFTER WE DID THAT RAINBOW THING WHICH WAS SUPER COOL AND WAS EVEN BETTER THAN A SONIC RAINBOOM BUT DON'T TELL RAINBOW DASH THAT BECAUSE SHE'LL GET JEALOUS AND TRY TO DO LIKE A DOUBLE SPECTACULAR SUPER WUPER RAINBOOM DELUXE OR SOMETHING AND I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'S REAL BUT SHE'LL DO IT ANYWAY BUT ANYWAY WHAT I LIKE TO DO IS BAKE THINGS BECAUSE BAKING THINGS IS FUN AND BECAUSE YOU WANTED THINGS THAT WERE FUN AND BECAUSE BAKING IS FUN LIKE I SAID THEN THAT MEANS THAT YOU SHOULD TRY TO DO BAKING BECAUSE BAKING IS FUN AND…

Twilight stopped reading at that point. She took a look at the front and giggled a little at the slightly crude crayon drawing of a purple and pink pony dancing at a party (the arrows that said "You" and "Me" were a great help in figuring out which one was meant to be her), and she levitated it to the shelf.

"Well, better clean this mess up," she said to herself, and began gathering streamers and putting them in the wastepaper basket. She was about halfway done when the nagging voice in her head got loud enough for her to take notice again, and she began wondering what it was trying to say. The penny dropped with a sickening clunk.

"Wait, did that letter say that Spike… broke the library?"


	6. There's something in your hair

Luna walked down the hallway towards her meeting spot with Twilight in the entrance hall. A tingling feeling of nervousness pervaded her core, which was making it somewhat difficult to walk in a dignified manner. Her legs shook like jelly as she cursed herself for being so aloof the other evening. This was one of the ponies that had cleansed her from the influence of Nightmare Moon; they saved her, and she might have already made it so that she didn't like her one bit. She entered the entrance hall feeling a strong determination to treat Twilight Sparkle with dignity and honour. Luna readied herself and stepped through the door.

"Twilight Sparkle, it's a great honour to make your aquapppfft HAHAHAHA"

Twilight stepped back in surprise. The princess had collapsed in a fit of laughter and was rolling about on the floor.

"I… what?"

But the Princess was laughing too hard to speak. All she could do was point her hoof at Twilight before spluttering into yet more guffaws, chortles and whoops. Dumbfounded by the quite unprincess-like display, Twilight looked down at herself before realising with a sinking feeling that she'd completely forgotten to wash herself off from Pinkie Pie's card.

This was very embarrassing. Twilight began wishing with great fervour that she wasn't there. How was she going to get away from this?

Luna finally got over the worst of the laughs. She was so certain that this was going to be an awkward first meeting, she hadn't considered that the other pony might have thought the same thing and actually worked to counter it. She looked at Twilight.

"Thank you, twilight. I was nervous about meeting you, you know, and… Twilight?"

The purple unicorn was staring at her own chest, eyes tiny in shock. Luna began to lose a little of her enthusiasm.

"Hello, Twilight?" she said, and waved her hoof in front of Twilight's face to try and snap her out of it. Twilight looked up, seeming to notice for the first time that Luna had stopped rolling on the floor like an idiot and was now standing worriedly in front of her.

Twilight had just noticed for the first time that Luna had stopped rolling on the floor like an idiot and was now standing worriedly in front of her. She felt like Fluttershy had just shocked her with her trademark stare, and briefly wondered how much time had passed.

"Hello, princess. I.. uuhm… it's nice to… errr… I didn't mean to look like this I'm sorry please don't be mad at me." She shut her eyes and awaited whatever wrath a princess who just got forced into making a fool of herself would give. After a few wrathless seconds passed, she opened the corner of one of her eyes. Luna was still stood where she was, with no wrath in sight.

"Well, I thought it was pretty funny, is all. Oh, you have something…" Luna reached out her hoof and poked at something on Twilight's mane. With a soft th-zoot, a self-inflating balloon self-inflated and began to float away from them. Twilight and Luna watched the yellow balloon silently drift down the nearby main staircase, past a rather confused looking brown earth pony and out the front door. Something about the brown pony's face made Twilight forget that she just did the most silly thing she could possibly ever have done. She began to laugh quietly. Beside her, Luna was doing the same thing. The laughs slowly began growing louder until they were holding onto each other for support, tears streaming down their faces as they struggled to breath through the mirth.

Luna was the first to slow down.

"Aha, Twilight, perhaps you should - ahaha - perhaps you should go and clean yourself off?"

Twilight nodded, slowly standing up as laughs wracked her body. They began walking back towards Twilight's room, the ice between them thoroughly and unquestionably broken.


	7. The tedious part where they chat some

"That could have gone a lot worse," Twilight mused.

"I quite agree. Do you know, I thought that I might have turned you against me the first time we met?"

"Goodness, no. None of the other guests were very nice, so I wasn't surprised that you lumped me in with them."

"Well, I am sorry for doing so!"

"Apology accepted, Princess."

"Please, call me Luna."

Twilight smiled. This morning could have been a complete disaster, but it was turning out quite nicely. Of course, she could have done without the embarrassment, but that was neither here-nor-there now.

"Would you like to come in whilst I clean up?" she asked.

"Yes, please."

The two entered through the door into Twilight's room, and Twilight immediately went into the bathroom and locked the door behind her, leaving Luna to stand around and be nosy.

Looking around at the desk, she noticed that things were kept very neat and in their proper place. There was very little clutter, and the few things that were there were dusted.

"Hm, she keeps her things a lot like I do," thought Luna. Her eyes slid to a drawing of a purple pony called "You" and a pink pony called "Me". They seemed to be having fun at a discotheque of some form. Opening the card revealed a long and hard to read letter. She was just reading about how somepony called Spike had broken a library ("I wonder how you break a library?") when the bathroom door unlocked and Twilight emerged, glitter-free. Luna slammed the card closed and hoped that Twilight hadn't caught her reading private correspondence. If she did, she didn't seem to mind.

"That's a letter from my friend, Pinkie Pie. She's the pink pony on the front."

"Aah, I was wondering what kind of name "Me" was. Wait, I think I remember somepony mentioning this one before. Isn't she the one who threw me that Ponyville party after I came back? And the one who tried to get the snobs at the Gala to do the pony pokey?"

"That's the one! Her special talent is throwing parties and having fun, so that's why I asked her what we should do. Did you get to that part?"

Luna cringed inwardly. So she did notice after all. But then, it seems that she really didn't mind at all. Flipping it open, she tried to focus once more.

"I'm not sure I can read that much, you know. My brain feels like popping."

"Oh, you get used to it. But anyway, she suggested that we bake something. Would you like to try that?"

Twilight looked at Luna expectantly. Luna frowned a little.

"Baking, huh? I've never tried that before…" she said, before giving Twilight a big smile. "So I guess we should do that! I love learning to do new things."

"Me too, Luna, me too." Twilight sighed a breath of relief. Had Luna not wanted to bake, then she had no idea what they could have done. They probably would have ended up in the archives or the library, discussing ancient Equestria and things that happened long ago, and as appealing as that sounded to Twilight, she thought that perhaps Celestia wanted them to try something involving less dust.

"Twilight?" said Luna.

"Yes?"

"Do you know how to bake?"

That derailed Twilight's train of thought. She had been thinking of baking in the abstract and hadn't considered that they'd need know-how to make anything.

"Well, no. But it can't be that hard, and there's going to be somepony in the kitchen and we can just ask them to help."

"I think that Zut Alors is on shift at the moment… I have a plan."


	8. The Kitchen

"Absolutely not!" cried Zut Alors, the curls on the end of his moustache quivering in indignation. "Eet is bad enough zat you would ask ze Great and Magnificent chef Zut Alors to teach you… beginners." He said the word 'beginners' like it was a swear word. "But you would also weesh to use ze equipment? Impossible! Ze Princess would never allow eet!"

"Monsieur Alors, has it not occurred to you that I, myself, am a princess?" said Luna calmly. "And has it not occurred to you that it makes me your boss?"

Zut Alors' eyes widened slightly as he realised how thin the ice he was traversing was. He instantly lowered his eyes and talked in a more subservient tone.

"Oui, madame. But you must understand - Princess Celestia told me that I must never allow anypony else to access the equipment when I am on shift. And 'anypony' includes the princesses themselves, Princess."

Luna looked at Twilight, and they nodded at each other. She turned back to Zut Alors.

"So, you're not allowed to let anypony else access anything when you are on shift?"

"Oui, zat is correct, madame."

"So if, hypothetically, I said to you that you have the rest of the day off at double your normal pay, what would you say?"

Zut Alors smiled.

"I would say, madame, that I hope you take very good care of the kitchen and would wish you a magnificent day." He took off his chef hat, left it on the counter and trotted out the door.

"Well, that worked fine for getting us access to the kitchen," said Twilight, "but now who do we show us how to bake things?"

Luna gave Twilight a look.

"I thought you would have thought of this already, Twilight. We simply go to the library and find a cookbook. I remember there was one I glanced through a while ago when I was in the archives."

"The archives? Do you not think we should get a newer book?"

"Nonsense. The older ones are much better. Now, wait here and I'll go and fetch it. I should only be five minutes."

Twilight nodded, and watched Luna trot out of the door and to her left. Having nothing to do, she looked at the things left around the kitchen. Spotting chef Alors' hat, she smirked and levitated it onto her head, climbing up onto a nearby crate and adopting a grand posture.

"Behold, I am ze Great and Magnificent chef Zut Alors! Watch in wonder as I cook ze fearsome Ursa Major a pastry! I am ze greatest thing to happen to Equestria since sliced bread, which I helped to invent myself!"

"Very entertaining, chef. But stop fooling around, I have a job for you."

Twilight turned around at the strange new voice. It belonged to a flustered-looking red unicorn levitating a notepad.

"But I…"

"You can do whatever you like in your free time. But this is an emergency! A griffon diplomat is only a few hours away, and is demanding an Equestrian-style apple pie when he arrives. You must create it immediately."

"But… I… I," Twilight stammered.

"I knew I could count on you. I shall remember this, Mr…" He checked the notepad. "Mr. Alors. Good day!" The unicorn left.

Twilight stared at the doorway, wondering what just happened, when Luna came back through with a leather-bound tome.

"Oh, suits you," she said, looking at the chef hat Twilight was wearing.

"I don't suppose that book has a recipe for apple pie, does it?" said Twilight.

"I suppose it does. Why?" said Luna.

After a bit of filling in, Luna looked somewhat panicked.

"I've heard of this diplomat. He's very difficult. If procedures don't go his way, then he just abandons the entire thing and goes home. This visit is particularly important, though. I suppose we shall simply have to bake him his pie ourselves."

"Do you think we could do it?"

"I don't see why not. After all, there's a step-by-step guide in this book. What's the worst that could happen?"

After a bit of back-and-forth, they finally got the ingredients they needed ready. Twilight was pleased to notice that the apples they were working with came from Sweet Apple Acres, and was telling Luna about Applejack as they prepared everything.

"Right, now it says that we should lattice the lid. What's latticing?" asked Twilight.

"Turn to the back, there's a section on latticing techniques." answered Luna.

"Right, I've found it. It says that we should roll out the lid pastry, slice it into strips and then weave them together."

"Easily done," said Luna as she magically prepared the pastry and arranged it onto the pie.

"And now, we put it into the oven at 400 degrees for twenty minutes. Well, that seems really hot, but who am I to argue with the book?"

They looked at the oven they had chosen to cook the pie with.

"How strange," Twilight said. "This one only goes to 300 degrees." She looked up at Luna, who was inspecting the dials on the other ovens.

"I think they all do, Twilight."

"So what do we do?"

"Well, put it on 350 and I can give it a bit of a magic boost to take it up to 400. That should be fine, I think."

They put the pie in the oven, turned it onto 350 and Luna's horn glowed.

"There. Now, twenty minutes and it will be done. I think we should take this opportunity to clean up, we're covered in flour."

Twilight looked down at herself. She almost considered not bothering to clean herself again, but since she was supposed to be 'chef alors', she decided that she had better make herself presentable.

"Okay," she said as they left the oven to its business.


	9. Sudden End of Story AKA The Deadline

Princess Celestia walked down towards the dining hall. She had just been caught up in the commotion of rescuing an earth pony who had managed to get himself stuck on the castle roof chasing his balloon and wanted nothing more than to get something to eat before that accursed griffon diplomat arrived. She turned the corner and realised that the air seemed rather hazy.

"Why, this almost seems like…"

"FIRE FIRE OH NO THERE'S A FIRE EVERYPONY PANIC EVERYPONY PANIC THE CASTLE IS ON FIRE!"

Celestia levitated the blue pony who was running in circles screaming about fires and floated him over to herself.

"My little pony, I don't think that inciting panic is the best course of action, do you?"

The pony's eyes widened, and Celestia let go of the magical gag that she had placed over his mouth to shut him up before he started a riot.

"No miss. But there's a fire! You have to put it out!"

"Yes," said Celestia. She dropped the pony, who managed to land on his feet, and galloped towards the kitchen. She burst through, to find Twilight and Luna on the scene and a small blaze ongoing behind them.

"This book doesn't say anything about how to deal with fires!" yelled Twilight, flipping quickly through pages on a dusty old book.

"What's wrong with this thing? It's not working as advertised!" yelled Luna, trying to beat out the fire using a fire extinguisher as a club.

"CELESTIA!" yelled both of them. "HELP US!"

Celestia's horn glowed as she levitated the fire extinguisher from Luna's grasp and pulled the failsafe ring, blasting the fire with CO2 gas.

"Now," said Celestia calmly, "What happened?"

She listened to the collective jabbering of Twilight and Luna, and after a while held up a hoof.

"So let me understand - you got a cookbook from over 700 years ago, and followed it to the letter?"

"Yes" said Twilight and Luna in unison.

"And after discovering that the oven only went to 350 degrees, you magically enhanced it to become hotter?"

"Uuh… yes." said Luna.

"Did you know that we converted from Fahrenheit to Celsius 500 years ago?"

"What's Fahrenheit?" said Twilight.

"What's Celsius?" said Luna.

Celestia facehoofed. The rest of this week was going to be a long one.

THE END

(or... is it?)


End file.
